M HKA Ensembles

M HKA, Antwerpen

27 April 2017 - 03 September 2017

M HKA calls itself a Eurasian museum and so it also pays sustained attention to art from the former Soviet space. The latter also has an Asian dimension, as demonstrated by this commitment for Evgeny Antufiev, an artist from Tuva, a republic which sees itself as being the heart of Asia, while remaining part of the Russian Federation. This acquisition is a result of the long-term collaboration with the V-A-C Foundation. A part of that foundation is the programme Present Continuous, with purchases of work of the laureate, donated to the M HKA with the aim of showing the new generation of Russian artists to the world. In similar fashion, the collection has been enriched with works by Olga Chernycheva, Taus Makhacheva and Sasha Pirogova.

Antufiev interweaves elements from Russian (folk) culture with collective historical memory and personal recollections. He is best known for his extraordinary sculptures, yet it are his installations that best show how he constructs a new history that is at the same time mythologizing and real. Video art, embroidery, prints, photographs and objects question the essence of common cultural symbols, as well as their immortality.

This space brings together the two ensembles M HKA has in its care. Immortality forever gathers reflections about the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, including a real rose and porcelain replicas of different versions of the Pavlova dessert, named after her. The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy is evoked in – on the one hand – a collection of postcards of his forest grave and – on the other – a video of an encounter of this international branched family at their family castle.

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